The Boss Lady's Man

{Chapter} 27

{Chapter 27}

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…” Toni read aloud while alone in her room the next evening.

She had allowed Erik to ‘move back in”, but she still didn’t understand his reasons for wanting to break off the marriage. It wasn’t like he knew that the gang had been arrested, was it? There was no way he could know. She refocused her attention on John 3:16. Erik had told her to start reading in the book of John. The verse did say “the world”, and that meant the entire world, not just a select few. John probably didn’t know about people like her back in his day, though.

The thought still nagged her. Had she been wrong about God all of these years? Had she been missing out on a good life because of her hardheaded, steadfast hatred of religion? What if she died tomorrow and went to hell? The thought gave her chills.

She heard a rider come up and looked out of the window. Her defenses rose and she forgot about every good thing in the world. She jumped up and rushed out of the door.

“What’re you doing back here? I should blow you to bits!” she yelled at her uncle.

Mark put up his hands. “Okay! I agree.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to give you an explanation” Mark dismounted his horse.

“Then say your piece and get out of here.”

Mark took a deep breath as Katie drew nearer. Toni decided that they both needed to hear what excuse her uncle had scrounged up over the past week.

“Okay, the reason I left was because I owed money to some men. I was going to return the money, but I never meant on staying gone so long,” Mark said.

Toni tapped the toe of her boot against the hard ground. Mark was going to have to do a whole lot better than that.

“I got to thinking about you and what you deserved, so I go it in my head to make me a cattle ranch. I started out with a few head and with a lot of hard work and sweat; I’ve got me a pretty big spread there in Arizona. I did it all for you, and I want you to come with me. I came back for you. We’ll have more money than we can possibly spend, and with you at my side I know that we can be pretty successful if we set our minds to it,” Mark explained, nearly pleading to her.

Toni snorted. “Don’t you see that I never wanted money? I never wanted a future. I just wanted one person to stick by me. At least you could have told me.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise” Mark smiled.

“Well, here’s another surprise” Toni inched closer to him. “I wouldn’t’ come live with you for all the money in the world. Those horses have been better to me than you ever have!”

“But I spent years of working on this for you…”

“Then go enjoy it. Have a good life. Alone. It worked for me” Toni turned to go back to the house.

“You’re miserable here!” Mark protested.

Toni stepped up to him. “I’m a whole lot more happy here sweating like a dog every day than I would ever be with you anywhere.”

Mark stood back as if he’d been punched. “You… You really don’t care, do you?”

“Spot on” Toni whirled around and started walking back to her shack.

“How did you even get married, then? No man I’ve ever met would have the guts to love you!” Mark called after her.

Toni froze a moment before spinning around so hard her hair flew in front of her face. “No man will ever have the guts to love me! I’m not even really married to that man!”